Can't get power button to work

[MarkHaysHarris777]

Edit:  Also, and this is important, on debian ( on mate desktop ) go into the Power Management Preferences and change the General Actions for the power and reset buttons !

System --> Preferences --> Power Management Preferences

Then click the General tab, and then set the power button to "Ask Me", and set the suspend button to "Do Nothing".

(hope that helps)

So should this config change make the reset button inoperable with Debian (I'm running Debian-Mate)?

Thats how I interpret it, suspend=reset...but even with "do nothing" as the suspend choice, the reset button still puts me in the unrecoverable sleep mode with a long or short press.

hi Don, no.
... reset is NOT suspend. The short-press of the power button is the suspend.  I turn that 'OFF' in my debian, because it suspends forever and won't wake up.  Apparently (says pfeerick) the new Android image does wake up. 
reset is JUST a hard reset of the PMIC and it does just that... and its hard on the system because it doesn't care what is going on, it just drops the power and resets !
So, the config I noted above, to re-iterate, the short-press does nothing, the long-press pulls up the power down dialogue, and the really long press forces power off.